Ani-Me #18: On Remaking, Remixing, and Rebuilding EVANGELION (Patreon)

It starts with a simple fact: watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time a few years ago was one of the most powerful narrative experiences of my life.

It was full of seemingly-impossible emotional range, at once gorgeous as it was terrifying, thrilling, depressing, funny, harrowing, cathartic, and ultimately soul rendering. And it all crested into the otherworldly metaphysical finish that was End of Evangelion. The whole show was so rife with resonant thematic meaning, ultimately resulting in one of the most brazen statements I’ve seen from an author in Hideaki Anno. Upon finishing that journey and sat down and wrote a lengthy Polygon essay about all the ideas within it and you can read it all right here - but the moment I got that essay out, I couldn’t help but notice that the first question out of some people mouths was whether or not I was going to watch the rebuilds. “The what?” I replied. And it was then told the creators had been making redone versions of the show in the form of several movies for the last decade. To which I had one automatic reply…

“Why in god's name would they do that?”

I know there’s genuine answers to that question, but that was still my immediate thought. And I’ll be honest as to why: I tend not to like remakes in general. Sure, there’s been a handful of good ones that were smart enough to take great premises from fairly middling films (like Ocean’s 11, Cronenberg’s The Fly, etc). But with incredible works of art it is just a no-win situation. At best, you are just aping the things that made something else great. However polished, it’s hard to recapture the magic of something that came out in a different time and place. And at worst, you are undermining that art completely. But I acknowledge that is more often the case in remake scenarios where outsider artists come in to usurp the property, however well intentioned. And what happens when the original artist decides to do it themselves?

Well then, I especially don’t like when artists go back and endlessly try to tinker with their older work. For every rare case of a director’s cut actually improving a film that was usually pulled out of their hands, there’s so many other examples of needless alteration and lateral movement (cue Special Editions conversation). To me, there’s a marked difference between cleaning up a transfer of something and literally getting in to alter the text of the art itself. Because that doesn’t just “remake,” it unmakes. But any conversation as to why this matters can’t help but drag us down into a bigger rabbit hole; one that centers around fundamental questions like “what is the purpose of art and why do we connect to it?” And those questions sprawl out into three general notions...

The first idea is philosophical. While a given piece of art can have an impact that is either temporary or timeless, it is still put out in a moment in time. And for better or worse, in that moment it’s now a case of “it is what it is.” A sentiment which is perhaps fitting for the bittersweet moment where the art no longer belongs to the artist. It is the public’s art now. Something they can attach themselves to and even grow close to it. Whatever your intentions were, they ultimately become the people’s reactions. And I won’t go so far as to call this moment sacred, but it’s one of the most important things in the world to me. Because it’s the point of spending all that time to make creative projects. You make it to entertain and communicate and connect.. And thus it is so critical to let that connection simply be whatever it becomes.

The second idea may seem contradictory given my allusions to the “sacred” process above, but at the same time it’s important to understand that art isn’t all that precious. At least not as precious as our fears make us feel like it is. In reality, it’s okay to make the thing, send it out into the world, learn the lessons from that process, and then just move on. This is such a healthy and organic part of an artist's evolution (and as an audience, it’s also okay to adore or dislike something at first and then later learn to dislike or adore that same thing). Because it’s all a part of necessary outward expansion. Part of the massive difference between artists who keep growing and artists who get trapped in the prisons of their own prior work.

To use popular heavyweights of the 70’s as examples, Scorsese constantly evolves even when coming back to old genres. Where someone like Spielberg feels like he floats between new exploration and gazing backward (with an unfortunate amount of the latter lately). And on the complete other end of the spectrum we saw George Lucas get stuck in Star Wars for nearly three decades (and I hope he feels free these days). Just like Cameron is getting caught up in Avatar now. Granted, I understand the way you can get golden handcuffed by the money of all this success and would rather look over a property you care about rather than have others do it. Really, I do. But you can feel all these artists turning inward and looking backwards and it’s just like, man, you better have a damn good artistic reason to do so, as well. To offer something that helps that old property expand outward, rather than simply retread what was offered. Honestly, the retread instinct actually reminds me of what happens when you see artists having done draft after draft after draft of a script or something and they hit that point in the creative process when people start fiddling with little things and mostly make lateral moves, usually making something a little better while making something else a little worse. That’s not perfectionism. That’s the tell-tale sign of not being able to let something go. To let it exist with all its flaws. And it's the same exact emotional instinct that often keeps people trapped in their properties.

The third idea involved in this is the fact that art is made by human beings, which means that art is therefore imperfect. Because there is nothing that can hope to reflect your every intention and want. It is an organic object built from an organic process. Moreover, whatever you once believed that art should say in terms of a set of ideas or beliefs? It can change with time, too. Dare I say should change. But I understand why this often makes it hard to look back on said art. Heck, I look at things I wrote a decade ago (even things I wrote a few weeks ago) and completely cringe. And this imperfect reality spurs two possible reactions from the author. The first is embracing the age-old understanding that you cannot fix the past (to use parlance of a certain project, you can not redo). To see that the healthiest thing is to go forward and make a new thing that reflects how you feel now. But sometimes - perhaps because artists are imperfect too - we give into the human instinct to try and “fix” the art from the past. Once again, I understand this instinct, but I think it comes with a lot of obvious pitfalls.

I also understand that every case is different.

And as far as I can tell from the general response, the EVA Rebuilds have hit the community in a myriad of different ways. There are so many who just don’t seem to like them on principle, for much of what I explained above: they have a connection to the existing work and all this retreading does indeed “unmake” the thing they have already connected to. Then there seems to be another group who enjoys it perhaps for the simple and understandable reason it is “more EVA.” This group may or may not have some overlap with what what we could call the left brain audience, where they sort of see the art as a big puzzle; a series of clues and answers that need clarification in order to properly align the lore (I know it often seems like I talk about left brain watching as a diminutive, but I genuinely don’t mean it that way. It can actually be a great way of examining text with rigor. I just don’t think art is ultimately a puzzle). So I’ve seen them really embracing added content full of clues.  But overall, I feel like most of the audience has uneven feelings about the project in general. Whatever your feelings are, they have come to a conclusion with the release of the final installment of the rebuilds: Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.01 Thrice Upon A Time (oh boy that title).

Which means that mine should, too. I know I've spent the last couple years putting off the rebuilds, but here at the end, it was time to watch. Honestly, I feel a bit weird about it going in. Because as deep as that original column went, I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the show. I only watched it once a couple years ago. And whatever my take is on remakes in general, I often don’t like the feeling of digging back into something this emotionally loaded for me (because the show was often rather triggering). But it actually turned out that my biggest problem was that I didn’t understand what they actually were. I thought these were some completely abstract new things in the EVA universe. Which means I genuinely didn’t know how much they would try to remake, remix, or rebuild that story which already existed. My head is honestly swirling with questions about this. And I’ll get into all of them. But in the end, these rebuilds get into all the same ideas of remaking that I referenced above - and therefore makes me question the grander purpose of art.

And the instincts of the artist behind it...

REBUILD 1.11: You Can (Not) Remake

Turns out this film was my nightmare scenario for the rebuilds.

But some of that is probably where my lack of knowledge about them came into play. I just genuinely couldn’t believe how much this film was just that first batch of episodes with a small amount of changes. To be fair, I get how this choice may seem innocuous to others. On paper it’s just a big screen victory lap that puts the gargantuan scale of the show on display and allows for a more detailed final battle. But in that clean upgrade, the thing that I rubbed against almost immediately was how different it all *felt.” Not just because of how clean the images look, but the real change in the feeling of the voice performances, too.

Everyone makes a big deal about the actors returning to do the movie, which makes sense! You of course want the same actors. But no one is talking about how weird this process is in terms of having some literally redo the same exact performance from years prior (PS I hate that googling information is infinitely harder now, but I couldn’t find more info on this - so I literally ended doing side by side to be sure they were not the same recordings). It’s interesting in a way, for sure - but it allows for all these little changes that really add up. Not just because the story is in so much more of a rush, but now Shinji genuinely comes across as a more active, generally upbeat, and less-internalized character (again, I did back and forth watches of the same scenes to be sure I wasn’t out of my mind here). It’s a real tonal change that may seem imperceptible, but it genuinely affects the viewer. The stakes genuinely feel less heavy that way. Even when it comes to the film’s plotting, the things that were cut may also seem small, but are actually not small at all. In fact, some of them were critical to our engagement with the show.

For example, there’s the entire construction of episode two, which is actually when I fell in love with the show. The opening EVA battle is hyped up, but the fight goes so poorly and right as Shinji’s stabbed we silently cut to him lying in a hospital bed. We are hit so hard by this terrifying reality. We immediately sense the stakes are HUGE. Moreover, Shinji doesn’t remember what happened after he was nearly killed. You see everyone walking on eggshells around him. So naturally, Shinji feels like he let people down and that must be the reason they don’t want to be around him. But it all brilliantly builds up to the reveal that Shinji blacked out in the EVA and then went apeshit after he was stabbed, practically turning the EVA itself into a beast. The feint works so well. And more importantly it represents the push / pull of both his fear of death AND his capacity for murder - all part of the great and terrible power that rests inside him. That introspection between blackout and the reveal is so critical for everything about Shinji’s development…

And the movie completely skips over it.

It just goes straight from the angel stabbing Shinji to him becoming the beast and there’s no real sense of what this really means (they don’t even really talk about it afterward). Without that critical bit of introspection, nor expression of fear, there’s no dramatic articulation for what is really going on with him. So the entire point of that “beasting out” loses all impact. It’s just a random action beat. One that catapults us forward as we’re just ping ponging between angel attacks like this is any other fucking Kaiju project. And the entire point of Neon Geneis Evangelion is that it is very much not. Again, it seems small, but the loss between these action beats is massive.

Even on the broader level, the attempt to make chunks of Evangelion into a “big movie” makes me realize how much the show’s modus operandi doesn’t really fit that approach. Because it was much more of an episodic show than perhaps people realized. Even if there was an overall serialized story, each episode had an objective or theme (like Shinji and Asuka having to learn to work together through the dance thing) and it would all cascade into last act Angel attack where those lessons and plots would come together in satisfying ways (or they would go horribly). Told in this way, each attack felt like it was a part of a complete story. And yes, we were building these mini-stories into a larger story, but when you’re tight for time and run through the “best of” moments from the episodes like they’re mere character beats between attacks? Then it doesn’t really work. You feel the slightness of it all. And I know the film is trying to find it’s narrative backbone by emphasizing the relationship between Rei and Shinji, but for all the declarations of “not being alone” it still ends on a moment that’s him literally declaring “you should try to smile more,” which plays like nails on a chalkboard today in a way that is culturally unavoidable.

Again, I know it is easy to see the film as innocuous. It’s a big, slick victory lap that I’m sure was at least wow-ing in a very specific theatrical context, especially for someone who had not seen the show in a decade and a half. But as a document in and of itself? It’s also easy to see how NOT innocuous it really is. I know Anno wanted to do the last battle as he originally intended, but is that enough of a cause to slice and dice critical parts of Shinji’s journey? You may argue that it doesn’t matter. That we still have the original show as guiding text. That we should take the big budget shine. But I’m saying I think this difference gets to my existential problem with this approach. Because ultimately, these changes just turn the film into something that is “the same, but worse.” And I think it’s the reason so many people barely seem to talk about this one. But whatever you feel about it personally, you get the sense that Anno might have been hung up on the same existential questions of purpose with what he just made, too. So the next time? He didn’t try to remake the same thing.

He instead aimed for the same, but different…

REBUILD 2.22: You Can (Not) Remix

I will say this, this rebuild is at least something.

And it’s often something compelling! But it’s still a deeply weird emotional experience. Because I genuinely can’t imagine what it would be like to watch this film without having watched the show before. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is mostly meant for people who have seen the show before. Because at times it’s just retelling parts of the story with blunted economical meet-ups. But at other times it's steeped in meta reference. At other times still it’s blasting out in new buck wild directions, but still ones that are purposefully trying to get emotional reactions out of you that are based on your prior knowledge of the show. And sometimes it throws something completely new at you. Like right from the outset, it reveals Mari as a bait and switch was Asuka and I was like “who the fuck is this?” She pretty much shows up, then keeps showing up later and I kept waiting for clarity as to her greater purpose, but was genuinely a bit confused about the inclusion (we’ll get to this aspect later).

The cumulative effect of all these different approaches is a kind of emotional whiplash. There are additions I genuinely love, like so much of the sequence at the aquarium. Which all serves as a beautiful reminder of how much of the show’s heart rested in these kids still being kids (which only helped play into the stark contrast of the show’s horrors). But there’s also the little moments where it all finds a beautiful rhythm, like the montage of people going to work in the city, all making peace with life during wartime. At best it feels like we’re genuinely getting to enjoy all these moments like they are lost B-sides of the show. But they also mix with moments that leave me feeling at a loss.

For example, Asuka’s original introduction on the show is all-timer, no? You feel the way her character breaks the entire rhythm of the show, which then mixes with show-stopping display of her abilities with the battle on the battleships and carriers (a sequence which absolutely had to be an influence on the latest Godzilla Vs. Kong movie). You just feel the whole thing swelling with purpose. But here in the new rebuild, Asuka’s introduction where she coasts in with this swift action scene sure feels economical, but what are we getting from it really? Yeah, it’s nice to see the character again after all this time, but is it a meaningful experience in its own right? Or is it just the shorthand presentation of information for something that used to be dramatic? Moreover, how is Asuka’s appearance supposed to feel like a big shift when the whole movie just had this giant opening with an even MORE confident new character in Mari? It’s undermining itself so completely because it only functions as meta shorthand with a show that already exists. And I worry about that cumulative effect of something whose meaning is only created through past reference.

For instance, there’s the reversal of the Shinji shower gag, this time with Asuka and well-placed straw. Is it a funny way of revisiting that gag? You betcha. It actually reminds me a lot of the second pistol gag in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But a nostalgia laugh is ultimately still a nostalgia laugh. And for a full explanation of the problems with that, here’s a piece from years ago on the inherent problems of comedy sequels. The short version is that while a nostalgic laugh is nice and comforting, it’s working off our connection to something we already found funny. Thus it can never be as good as the original beat (it’s the reason you don’t retell punchlines). It can’t catch us off guard or feel revelatory, so it never really makes us laugh as hard. Which again, is another thing that may seem innocuous, but it’s precisely the thing that builds a slow death. Because it not only ends up making the original joke feel less special, it silently erodes how much we care about the thing we are watching as an independent piece. I know you might be laughing at the moment, but seriously, that’s what happens. To this and the original column’s point, how many people do you see quoting Anchorman 2 seven years later? In your mind, do you still laugh at the original gag or the gag that referenced that gag later on? It’s always attempting a nearly impossible task. And in a broader sense it mirrors a lot of the same concerns about remaking and remixing in general.

Especially when it comes in a story where everything feels rushed and full of undramatized explanations. Like the fact that Rei outright tells Shinji there’s replacements of her, which robs that critical moment of dramatic discovery. And instead of slowly coming out through the relationships, Ryoji devolves into didactic story time and promises that “the three of us will be together again, just like college” (I have expected it to suddenly become the MacGruber story). Even thematically, this rebuild suddenly articulates “logical” explanations of beast mode, thus literal-izing something that was powerfully metaphorical before (which gives me echoes of midichlorian vibes). It’s a needles explanation that feels all the more cruel because this rebuild somehow misses the single most important beat of explanation in the show.

Because they have whole conversations about they “don’t like using kids as a pawn for the convenience of adults,” and yet none of the rebuilds actually dig into the “why kids?” question at all. But the kids being the only ones who could pilot the EVAs was so tantamount not just the logical understanding, but thematic understanding of the show. Someone would watch these rebuilds and have no idea why all of this is really happening and why it matters. All because the show has to stack as many events as possible and rush to get us to our finale, so it all just falls by the wayside. Where the show felt like the story was spiraling at a proper (yet still harrowing) pace, we instead rushed through perhaps because the creators feel “x” doesn’t need an explanation. After all, we explained it in the show! But it’s not about the explanation. It’s the way the explanation makes the character feel. It’s about the way it grounds us in the character’s headspace. And without these kinds of moments, Shinji’s journey loses critical interiority. He loses the paralysis and depression and all the things that this audience connected to in the first place. Really, I can’t tell you how many people told me that watching Shinji was the first time they saw their own childhood depression reflected in media. And I have no idea what to make of something now that so callously sidelines that connection. I am not trying to argue for more “remake” here, I’m instead trying to ask what’s the point of these remixing changes?

Does it make it better or worse? Are these lateral moves?

Who is this all for? Why?

These questions ring all the more loudly when we consider the film’s final remix decision, which is putting Asuka in the angel-sabotaged Eva (not Toji), thus being sure she is the one who gets chomped by Gendo’s autopilot commands. This reeks of “daring,” but is equally lacking in purpose. It’s not just that Asuka’s whole arc was cut down to bite size in this one (the loss of the doll sequence / her parentage takes the teeth out of just about everything). It’s how this bait and switch has no real point other than surprise. After all, Toji’s character IS THE SET UP for that moment through and through. Because there’s the history with his kid sister, the irony of Shinji not knowing that he was selected, and the way this horrible violence painfully interrupts their budding relationship. This ALL plays into why that moment is so harrowing. And despite the fact Asuka’s a “bigger” character, Shinji’s relationship with her isn’t the set-up for that horrible moment. Hell, going out like this a sacrificial blaze of glory is practically right within Asuka’s heroic wheelhouse, so it doesn’t even affect her character’s arc. If anything, it’s a reminder that the show’s arc of her going from brazen hero to re-paralyzed by childhood trauma and ultimately finding herself again was so damn transcendent (and probably my favorite thing the show ever did). The bait and switch here undermines that arc completely, just done in the name of remixed surprise. There isn’t even time to contemplate its effect on Shinji, because Anno hits the End of Evangelion point right after anyway. So it’s just another way the impact of these moments rushes by without ever truly letting us connect to them.

What point is there to making changes if you’re not going to let those changes have impact?

What’s perhaps the most frustrating part of this is how the film’s final moments remind you that Anno is still an incredible filmmaker. And as an incredible filmmaker, he was still able to make me feel utterly moved by Shinji’s rescue of Rei. It displays everything that makes this property special: the mixing of the emotion with the abstract and otherworldly, culminating in an explosion that brings us to the End of Evangelion much, much earlier than we expected. But perhaps there’s a simple reason for this. After the attempt to remake in 1.0, he was ready to remix with 2.0. But here at the end of 2.0 you practically feel him being like, “Okay, I’m ready to move on from all this.” Perhaps in a somewhat self-defeated way. Yet in another way he seems no less daunted. Because the film’s final post-credits scene is a whopper (and should NOT be a post credits scene, I mean, what the fuck) where we see Kaworu make a promise to the heavens about Shinji, “this time i will make you happy no matter what.” With those words, “this time,” we get the in-text confirmation about how we are in a bigger series of loops. Which means things will not be “the same, but different,” they will actually be different this time.

… Kind of.

REBUILD 3.33: You Can (Not) Rebuild

When the opening had film grain on the logos I was suddenly concerned I was watching the wrong thing and had to pause it to be sure. But it aptly marks the decision to try and strike forward into something completely new (while at the same time, still being a nod to the past). Because here we get our true blue POST-post-apocalypse version of the world! Behold the rebellion group “WILLE” with eyepatch Asuka (who I guess isn’t dead), our scientist Ritusuko now fully rocking the Jean Seberg haircut. Miss Mitsato channelling a hardened M. Bison. And even the appearance of Sakura, who is Toji’s little sister and all grown up! Because oh yeah, it’s 14 years later and everything’s changed now... except for Shinji… Now, I’ll be honest that this is more in line with what I thought the rebuilds would be like. Just a complete re-imagining of the show which uses the characters more as cyphers for new stories. You know, something more akin to the “what if?” comics series. Which I tend to be more in favor of when revisiting the property. It’s not merely remaking, or remixing, but an actual attempt to rebuild.

At the very least, there’s something brazen about it all. I mean, this is the kind of movie that throws the main title card 32 minutes into a 96 minute running time. But on that note, I have to say that the opening fight is way, way too long? Not just in terms of sheer minutes, but because it actually gets boring and repetitive. Which is probably the first time I ever felt that way about a fight in this show? Plus it plays coy with too much of what’s going on because everyone is keeping Shinji (and his ability to hurt them) at a distance. But by the time we get to the second act and we start understanding the scope of a new world left in ruins, what with the “almost” third impact and the fact that Shinji has destroyed everything he cares about - it hits hard. Even his act of “saving” Rei at the end of the last film feels like a wash. He tries to communicate with her in this new scenario where they’re all back working for daddio, but you can’t help but feel the immense cynicism about all this. We’re in the ruins of the world, normalizing the idea that “mass extinctions are not a rare occurrence on this world” along Asuka’s insistence that “one person means jack in the world today.” But you also sense that it can be better. You sense there’s something that needs to change…

Enter Kaworu Nagisa AKA the fifth children AKA the one in the original show who actually had a meaningful connection with Shinji. He was perhaps even the one who showed him kindness for the first time (and thankfully spawned lots of very important queer conversations that were very much intended). But there’s something so strange about Kaworu’s context now. For one, there’s the interesting clarification that he’s “SEELE’s Boy,” but there’s also something about him coming at all this with a grand sense of self-awareness. Suddenly, there’s this kind of fatalism and destiny to the story, perhaps because we already know who he really is from the start. Which means his role as “the last angel” is perhaps going through the motions too familiar. Honestly, does anyone feel like this can’t help but paint him as a manic pixie dream boy? As if he’s only here to do his destiny, which is to help Shinji instead of doing his own shit? Instead of making that connection by happenstance? I genuinely feel like Shinji’s connection should feel like a meaningful event that plays out before Kaworu marches toward his own fate, NOT his fate in and of itself. So as lovely as the scenes playing piano together are (and they are lovely), there’s something about this re-tread that really undermines the character’s independent reality for me - and in turn makes their love feel all the more obligatory.

Beyond that, the entire thing Kaworu’s awareness brings up is the way the narrative is trapped in this in between two different “dramatic realities.” To explain, anytime you deal with cycles and time of reborn lives, you’re getting into this question of whether or not the characters are aware if those cycles are happening. Sometimes they’re not, but there’s a reason in fiction the character is more often aware of what’s happening. Because it makes us see the internal nature of them going through a learning experience. If Bill Murray wasn’t aware he was repeating each moment of Groundhog Day, what’s the point of a singular story? And how would Tom Cruise learn through repetition in Edge of Tomorrow? But the thing about all this Re-do-ing in the rebuilds is that Shinji and co. aren’t aware that this is a new step in the cycle. Only Kaworu seems to be. So it can’t help but feel like the show has one foot in this angelic be-all-end all force of awareness and one foot outside of it. Sure, I understand the logic of how it's all playing out, but it doesn’t make sense dramatically (which is kind of how I feel about the rebuilds in general). It’s hard to be on the edge of your seat when you’ve already done this whole rodeo before. And as much of this post-post apocalypse is “different,” we’re still coasting towards the same tragedies, the same mistakes, and same let downs - and somehow still putting off the crux of that journey once again. After all, 3.0’s whole narrative effectively switched out End of Evangelion for the “near third impact” and then ends yet again on a “near fourth.”

But what are we actually near?

Even in terms of execution, I feel like there’s so much space of nothingness in this film. Not just literally, but metaphorically. Like we got to this really interesting new conceit, but then kept thumbing around with the old idea. It feels as if Anno realized that rushing to the end of things in Rebuild 2.0 actually left some crucial developments between Shinji, his dad, and Kaworu to be determined. So we rushed to the future and just did it all again. But so much of that dramatization feels staid. From the aforementioned first action scene to the long conversations of chess that are chock full of exposition, often for things that were better dramatized in the show. All before throwing in new crucial plot information about spears and such in the late last act maneuver. Then we finally have this climactic battle of Shinji and Kaworu fighting Asuka and Mari - which on paper should be a nail-biting prospect like Shinji vs. Toji was - but I don’t really even get the dramatic impetus behind the fight because both the rooting interest and the dramatic worries involved are completely elusive? Like we already know Shinji and Kaworu are victims of his dad’s manipulations and we’ve already faked-out a giant impact once before in the last movie. So as cool as it is that they are on a giant pile of skulls, everything about this feels inward and backwards. Because there’s a huge difference between experiencing heartbreak and replaying heartbreak.

It would all be more survivable if I felt like we were hammering home some new powerful thematic idea behind it, but it just doesn’t get there. I kept fishing for connections, hearing beautiful bits of sentiment in lines like “the bottom most layer of the central dogma” and “even when a soul is lost, it’s aspirations and curses stay in this world,” but it’s really hard to add it all up into something that is both coherent and gives better context to the show (the closest it all comes is the introduction of the concept of “the lilin,” but mostly it’s more just repetition). Everything about the human instrumentality project and AT fields and the end of the world feels like a check-list being hit. Even the treatment of SEELE and all those jeff bozoses in the round table, who want to fashion immortality through the murder of others and transportation of the self to a higher plane - feels like it lacked the explosive orgy of the show’s focus back then. And ultimately, it’s yet another feint. And as we see Asuka, Shinji and Rei walking away with a “to be continued” promise, I question the purpose of all of it. How did this really advance any of the story? Did Shinji not already have all the same realizations about his dad at the end of the last one? It all feels somehow even further away from said end than even the last one did. But perhaps Anno says it himself..

“Breaking apart the world is a trivial matter. Rebuilding it, however, is not so easy.”

Reading the quote cynically, it’s easy to see Anno struggling with what he’s exactly trying to do with all of these rebuilds. But reading it generously, it’s putting a lot of his feelings about the two different projects into stark clarity. Because you can see that Anno is feeling a lot of guilt over the original series, especially the brazen way it ended an orgy of blood, blame, guilt, but also beauty and transcendence. Now later in life, it’s easy to see the anger behind this as trivial. To understand the instinct to not want to leave those characters on the beach, left feeling ashamed in a red, desolate world. It would make you want to rescue them. To go back and begin a very uneasy rebuilding process anew. But these rebuilds have been a hard way of getting back there. But there is a promise. One that Kaworu practically spells out for the audience, telling Shinji “this time we rewrite who we are” and “the ties that bind you will show you the way.” So now, with the final last movie coming in the rebuild series, it’s truly time to fix that cycle. And in that, perhaps justify the rebuilding process as a whole.

But I will say this. Even before I started watching these rebuilds, people were telling me “you have to watch the documentary with the final movie! It’s so important!”

Yeah, about that…

ON *NOT* WATCHING THE DOCUMENTARY (AT LEAST RIGHT NOW)

So along with the final rebuild film, they have released a documentary called Hideaki Anno: The Final Challenge of Evangelion which apparently talks a great deal about his process, his intentions, and what the whole ending here is really “about,” along with his connection with his wife. Again, I’ve seen it described as essential viewing. And I do want to watch this eventually! I think it will likely be tremendously interesting. But I am absolutely not going to watch it now, specifically as I’m still writing this essay. And I think there are very important reasons for this.

The first kind of goes to aforementioned worry about the hyper-literalism of a certain part of the fandom and the way that intersects with interviews and behind the scenes materials. I mean, all it took was the words of one production person trying to play coy about the religious aspects of the original story (likely in an effort to avoid controversy) and I can’t tell you HOW MANY PEOPLE at-ed me saying that the endlessly-clear religious symbolism the story uses to convey meaning was a red herring or something. In all my years of criticism I’ve never seen anything like it? Like they just literally discounted the fundamental metaphors of the show because one random dude said one random thing (and for good reason, too). But this actually brings us to the larger subject of understanding that a creator’s intent is not the be all end all of what something “means.” Because meaning is created in the interpretation process (whereas very little meaning is created in intention). Whatever the authors say is just as much of an opinion as anyone else’s. And it was weirdly Christopher Nolan who said one of my favorite things on the subject, which is “their interpretation is as good as mine.”

But it’s not even really about the logic of the mythos either. Whenever I write about symbolism in essays I often call it “high school english paper shit” because I recognize the inherent silliness of it, but there’s also an essential point to the process itself. It’s about engaging with art and learning to talk meaningfully about the ways it compels us. Sure, sometimes it's explaining text or meta text or whatever else. But sometimes it’s self-reflecting within the presence of those things. And sometimes it’s giving words to a deeply emotional experience that is evoked through the drama itself. There’s a transcendent nature to these connections with art. And we do it with our own time, our own rumination, and our own work… which is why we shouldn’t always be in a rush to get the author’s last word on the ding dang subject. I know these two paragraphs get into the “death of the author” stuff, but I think it’s simpler than that: the art itself is what means the most. And it’s often why I don’t like sticking around for Q and A’s or immediately watching documentaries after I finish a film. And honestly it’s part of the reason why I didn’t want to watch the rebuilds until I had some distance from that powerful first experience with the show.

But please understand I don’t want to demonize that kind of absorption, it’s often a really important aspect of “learning how to learn,” if that makes sense. It’s just that I think there is tremendous value to eventually moving to this other kind of approach where you give space to your own thoughts and feelings. Because art isn’t a puzzle. It’s an emotion. And as counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is not the artists, nor their words of intent that are the “most real ” thing to us, but the art itself. Which is why I want to engage the art itself. And I think it’s no accident that the function of the art itself becomes the real measure of whether or not a project will have legs throughout time. When Anno writes “this time we rewrite who we are.” I don’t want him to tell me. I want him to show me.

And it’s finally time to see if that declaration came to fruition…

REBUILD 3.0 + 1.01: You Can (Not) Restart… Or Can You?

And so we find ourselves in the POST-post-post apocalypse. But of all the rebuild projects, it is Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.01: Thrice Upon A Time that probably has the most going for it.

In fact, the first hour might be some of the most compelling work they’ve ever made. Throughout this column you have seen me remark that the show had better balance, whereas the rebuilds are often trapped in the desire to rush by critical character work in order to expand on the pomp and circumstance of battle. Which is precisely why I saw that two hours and thirty five minute running time and got very, very scared. But it turns out to be time well spent. Particularly in Village 3. Where it would be tempting to run through all the ways we catch up with a world still hanging on to life. Toji the doctor! Kensuke the survivalist! Other babies abound! But really it’s about the journey the main characters get to go on in this idyllic reset while in the one last safe-ish place on earth.

Because this character work is what real rebuilding looks like.

Most enjoyable of all is Rei’s learning of what it means to be a normal person with a normal life. It’s sort of funny how much the sequence reminds us of how little she’s actually seen in her life? What with basic questions like, when seeing a cat, “why is that shaped differently than a dog?” Or when seeing a baby, “It's human, but small. Why did you shrink her?” But it’s all part of Rei discovering these important concepts like cute, work, rest, friendship, and most critically of all, how to connect those words to the feelings she has inside. It’s so small, but so honest. It really might be one of the most cathartic things that Evangelion has ever produced? And like most cathartic things in the show, our heartbreak is met in the way it’s so painfully cut short by her inability to live outside NERV itself (though I will say I thought she died the first time her eyes went red, so I wish that was executed a little differently?). Still, when her death finally comes with the little angel cross and her echoing the words, “Sayanora means I hope I’ll see you again,” we are struck deeply. It’s the best of what Evangelion can do. And thankfully, she’s not the only one going through something meaningful here.

Because Shinji is slowly coming back to life after the trauma of yet another near-destruction of the remaining world. After all the rushing of the last few movies, we finally come back to “catatonic Shinji” AKA the space where “he doesn’t want to live, but he can’t die either.” I know it can seem like stasis to some, but this expression is so critical to his character because it is the clearest possible expression of depression and trauma. Something made even more clear when we see him go every day to Tokyo bay, to sit in the ruins of the damage he caused. But what I have always loved about this show is their understanding of how critical these moments are to the healing process. No, you don’t need to be there forever. But you really need to sit with the immense pain of the damage and the guilt (Hell, I had two days like that a few weeks ago. It’s necessary). And then one day, after time and reflection, you suddenly get this urge like Shinji does to stand up, to eat with ravenous hunger, to participate in the world, and to put one foot in front of the other. It’s a space where you can apologize, like Shinji does to Asuka (I love how they articulate it in terms of his passivity). And slowly you start to feel different. You may not understand why people are being nice to you given how much they know you created the ruins of the world. But you start to feel it. And then you can even start fishing, literally and metaphorically. This process of restoration is all dramatized so beautifully with Shinji’s story.

Then there is Asuka. Even though it may seem that she’s the least “satisfying” of the stays in Village 3, she is nonetheless dealing with something just as interesting. Because she’s stuck in her pattern of disconnection. She’s also stuck being a 14 year old, cursed by the EVA. She’s stuck seeing herself as the protector the community, not *in* the community itself. She’s stuck in listlessness with declaring that she’s “tired of pretending to sleep.” She’s stuck dealing with the reverberations and frustrations of her 1000 yard stare that has come with the horrors of war. And it will take much more than a stay in Village 3 to get her unstuck (especially as it seems she’s stayed here many times before). But when Asuka gets back to the ship? Suddenly we realize she’s built this strange, somewhat affectionate partnership with Mari? They’re “princess” and the “four eyed crony,” but there’s all sorts of bigger questions going on, given their familiarity. But it lays low for now. For Asuka’s intended catharsis will come at the end.

Still, the power of the film’s opening hour feels like it keeps opening up new ideas in a way that I wish the rebuilds did more of. Some of it is in the surface details, like the way the old EVAs still roam the earth. But most of it is character driven. Like the way it reveals Misato’s pregnancy and Kaji’s sacrifice, all while hinting that he was secretly trying to be Noah with all the species of the earth. I know these are retcons, but they are strong ideas that actually make sense for the characters (and thus I can’t help but wish they were more part of this story, not something crammed in). Maybe it’s just that they felt they had to rush with the old ones, maybe it was finally having the budget, but I finally feel like the rebuild story is taking time to do what the old Evangelion show did so effectively. And it can be found in something as simple as Sakura getting a moment to cry as she looks at her brother’s picture.

But what is perhaps most unfortunate is my reaction to the film’s action. Again, the original show had some of the most incredible action I’ve ever seen. Aesthetically, it felt heavy and pointed, somehow realistically dramatized and yet stylized with key frames of flourish. Functionally, it had clear objectives, called out obstacles, provided horrifying wrinkles, and often led to miraculous or disastrous results. But in this film? It devolves into endless camera swirls of impossible angles, often getting repetitive as they dizzying, all coasting through detail-less CGI environments. Nothing ever cuts and nothing ever really has an impact. Has Anno somehow improbably lost “it?” Likely not. I think it’s just the curse of freedom. Early limitations of animation and the sheer cost used to force you to make blunt decisions that utterly rely on dramatic tact. Often just by putting two angles together and giving the events motion and power, all to create impact in the cut itself. But nowadays we have this endless capacity to make something crazy and improbable, with non-stop spinning and the like - but you sadly end up feeling the budget limitation on the back end, not the front. Which means you can’t get in there with the final render and put as much detail and texturing as you’d like. It’s why so much modern animation looks “half finished.” And it all plays into the old Jurassic Park adage where you get so obsessed with “the idea that you could that you never stop to think if you should.” And it’s been weird to watch it develop over the course of the rebuild films because it’s gotten more and more pronounced. But here in the finale, I genuinely can’t  believe how weightless and lacking in impact it all feels. But nowhere is the sterile animation effect more devastating…

Then with our redux of End of Evangelion.

The big weird CGI Ayanami face? The pixely souls? The endless half-rendered textures floating everywhere? I just… gah… The original film was a miracle of artistic explosion. Every frame it felt like it was a composed painting, full of loaded meaning and devastating import. I mean there’s a reason I’ve still seen stills of that art pop up again and again and again throughout the last twenty years. But this redux feels so off-putting and sterile and ugly. And not in the way where I think that stylization adds to the dramatic effect. It doesn’t even feel cosmic. It’s a matter of execution that kind of breaks my heart a little. But admittedly it’s not the most important thing. Because there’s still the consideration of whether or not those details effectively add up and help communicate something meaningful to the audience.

To that, it’s impossible to claim there’s a clear reading of anything that’s ultimately high school English paper shit, but the original End of Evangelion had this perfect union of artistic intention and artistic instinct. To the point that I wrote an entire breakdown of the symbolism in that essay linked above. It’s a grand statement about the joining of Rei and Kaworu, the erasure of gender and sexuality, and the way the universe breaks down into a crucial choice of how to restart anew - but this time with Shinji reaching the honest new point with Asuka and accepting the “disgusting” aspect within to build forward into life. Was it utterly harrowing and dark? Absolutely. Was it also one of the most brazen, but important endings imaginable? Also absolutely. Especially for that particular show and the way people had been cynically reacting to Shinji’s internal monologue in the last two episodes.

But the redux of this final moment is different and not just aesthetically-speaking. For one, we are treated to more lore regarding the red impact of angels and “corization” (which I can only really figure out as some kind of anti-poisoning, but it doesn’t end up mattering) and some build up to the idea of the “The Doors of Guf” (which are a reference to the doors of the garden of Eden). Basically we are trying to get at this idea that the final impact will devour all the souls which are left in the world, but plot-wise I thought it all would end up being more of a thing? I don’t know. So much of the removal of Kaworu and Rei’s unification is really just about getting us to the new anti-universe barrier where Gendo wants to bring everything to a head. Which brings us to the biggest change on the whole….

Which is the fact Gendo has already gone full Daddy God. Which is perhaps confusing because so much of the prior narrative implied he needed the last impact to attain this? Anyway, I guess he just went ahead and did it anyway somehow. And he’s still dead set on removing AT fields and telling us “gods need no barriers,” which is why he wants to bring us all to the anti-universe. Honestly, a lot of this is just a switch on the verbiage of everything that exists in the prior version. Because the big difference is that Gendo didn’t even make it this far last time and instead rightfully died without fulfilling his foolish objective. And now, he gets exactly what he wants. But it mostly makes for a fun excuse for Gendo and Shinji to have a crazy last battle in a full-on quantum zone.

As I said, the CGI of the battle itself is… not entirely awesome (though it’s mirrored to be undramatic by its very design). And at times you hear lines like “your feeble powers will not stop me!” and it’s sort of my nightmare version of the show. But so many of the ideas that go along with it are compelling. They dart about the famous locations from the show, all hallmarks of Shinji’s mind. And thankfully it gets cut short when it all turns into “dialogue boss” mode. Which it goes pretty damn deep with. Hell, for the first time, it makes an effort to strike down into Gendo’s core. We unpack everything in his story - one that actually has a lot in common with Scrooge? From the lonely childhood. To the solace in books. To the one love that could have kept him free. And to the loss that perpetuates his misery onward, for he is a man who never knew how to accept loss. But Shinji puts it more aptly “he didn’t want to accept his own weakness.” And that’s why Gendo turned to pass the burning torch of isolation onto his son. But it is at this point of mutual understanding that Shinji achieves a once-thought-impossible transcendence. Gendo understands that he will never meet Yui, and all he can offer is his final dejected goodbye at the train station. All of this undoubtedly works when you look at the context of unmaking through self-realization.

From there, things get even more abstract. Kaworu the herald appears and sends Shinji forth in his new cycle (while he’s left to repeat his job, at least we think). He sends Asuka forth with a sense of pride. Then Shinji and Rei agree upon creating a new titular “neon genesis” and a world without EVAs. Shinji returns to earth, his mother saving him from the self-sacrifice (and possibly spiritually now with Gendo again?). He is then met by Mari on a clear beach, free from the blood soaked fury, it all even goes one layer deeper. Shinji seemingly “awakes” to another train station where they are all adults. We see them each there, seeming at peace in a normal life. Shinji then has this girl “with big boobs” aka Mari, who meets him and they run off together into the real world itself. Yet another sign that this time the horrible cycle is broken. And that they can live a peaceful life anew. Free from Evas. Free from battles with angles in the sky - and the demons within. It is full of desperate resolution and calm… And yet, I can’t help but point out something critical.

Because there is an important difference between resolution and catharsis.

Thus, I have five lingering questions I cannot stop thinking about.

One - Is this ending with Shinji’s father actually cathartic?

It certainly has the hallmarks of all the things that feel that way. After all, it’s the final deep dive into a villain understanding himself and in that way, perhaps unmaking his villainy. But just like the Scrooge allegory, such things tend to have more impact when we’ve experienced that Road To Damascus journey with them. And instead, we’ve gone through every bit of this journey with Shinji. And the reason the original ending was so cathartic despite the complete lack of introspection is because… *clears throat*... his dad is a fucking sociopath. He’s not a misunderstood wayward villain. He’s a person who will destroy people, destroy barriers, and destroy anything to get what he wants. And from early on we already understood his motive with Yui, just as we understood his ugliness, just as we understood the way he pushed Shinji away, along with all the other things he cared for once upon a time. So the entire point of Shinji’s journey was to realize he was never going to please him. To gain the understanding that this person was just going to keep hurting him. As is said, “removing oneself from a toxic situation is an act of self-care.” And the catharsis came in Shinji doing just that about putting up the boundary (his meaningful AT field if you will), so that he can become independent.

But everything about the depiction in this rebuild hints at something else. Because here, a decade and a half later it does not feel like the cathartic moment of creating a boundary against some dead-set on removing them. It instead acts as a search for understanding with this sociopath and even offers forgiveness (and maybe even eternal happiness of him actually getting to be with Yui even though the whole point of him learning was realizing he wouldn’t?). Honestly, it more feels like someone who is still dealing with the echoes of the past as a way of finally letting go of that anger? Perhaps a way of finally understanding the damage one has done to us? And thus really moving past it in a way that is meaningfully active… But I’m deeply torn about this.

Because this sudden reconciliation does not work as a meaningful act of growth to everything we’ve just seen in the story prior (you have to draw the boundary first and come to the resolution of letting go much later on). Thus I worry it just jumps things forward and empathizes with Gendo’s sociopathy in a way that doesn’t quite jibe with what Shinji needs to understand at that particular moment. As much as it feels like a pleasant resolution, it only really works as a revision all these years later to Gendo’s original demise. To Anno finding some kind of way of letting this endless cycle of anger go. Thus, like so much of what is in this rebuild, it only works as a meta ending on top of the one that already worked much more cathartically.

Two - What is Kaworu’s ultimate role in this story?

In the last version of the story Kaworu feels like he’s this independent, instrumental figure who (even though he’s an angel who will get processed into the final impact) creates a kind of relationship that spurs on so many of Shinji’s internal realizations and character growth. But the key notion is that Kaworu is still a fellow character whose angelic capacity is arrived at dramatically. But by immediately turning him into this angelic figure trapped in the endless cycle, it not only gets into the Groundhog Day “awareness” problem I talked about earlier, it feels like it turns him into this weird Jiminy Cricket figure who is there for timely pep talks as all this other stuff goes in different directions. As always, I can’t help but feel like this takes something that already worked more cathartically before and turns it into a slick meta notion about cycles with none of the emotional impact that truly rests under it. And like so much of the story, that notion of him being in the cycle is thrown for a loop when we see him at the train station. I just don’t know what it wants us to feel from this - and I don’t think its vagueness points us in any interesting direction either way?

Three - Wait, what was that “lesson” about crying, again?

Right at the end they’re talking about Shinji’s growth and Kaworu notices that he’s not crying right now. Then Shinji gives one of the weirdest fucking speeches I’ve ever seen in my life. He says that he’s learned that “crying just a relief for yourself” and that it “doesn’t help anyone,” and then promises “I won't cry anymore.” Which is uhhhhhhh fuck off with that shit!? I mean we talk endlessly about the fact that crying is a crucial part of the human experience and something men genuinely need to learn how to embrace to help us get past the toxic masculinity. So to finally have the “solution” to be to turn right back into that toxicity? Precisely with this kind of verbiage? And he even promises he won’t do it anymore? My jaw was literally on the floor.

It’s not only an erasure of the sensitivity that actually makes Shinji strong. It’s, like, the exact opposite of the lesson of Inside Out - which was about learning the power of empathy and how sadness is not just a crucial part of emotional release, but what helps connect us to others in sharing that sadness. Honestly, I’m praying this is a translation thing in the subtitles because there are actually important ideas that MAYBE could be part of this catharsis? Like the notion of not weaponizing tears and sorrow. Or building emotional resources to help keep you grounded and not getting destroyed by the smaller things. But is that balance what he’s aiming for here? I mean, this is a kid who has gone through repeated trauma and I can’t believe this was the articulation of his final lesson. It’s not just a bonkers reversal on so much of the character’s sentiment of the original show, but something that feels weirdly harmful? Like it’s just trying to appease people who alway thought Shinji was too soft or something? Gah.

Four - Were these cathartic endings for Asuka and Rei?

As I said, the first half of 3.0 + 1.01 does so much incredible character work with these two that I just felt like we were headed for something transcendent. But their endings… Well, I’m not quite sure exactly. The end sequence with Asuka plays like a greatest hits of her past, running down the events in her life from the other show (like the doll) and evoking the psychological reality, while not going into details whatsoever (again, if you hadn’t seen the OG show this would all be lost on you. It mostly just articulates that despite the want of being strong and having a role - she is still lonely. That she wants to be pat on the head by someone - and perhaps the most cathartic image is her being patted by the doll itself (which removes its head and reveals adult Kensuke and uhhh what is going on there? Even though it doesn’t quite matter because he’s not on the train station). Then it replays the End of Evangelion bloody beach scene and she and Shinji openly admit they actually like one another (however frustrating it is to do so). Asuka’s eyes go big and she is then jettisoned home. End story. There’s so much nice sentiment with this, but again, I can’t help but have trouble finding catharsis in this. It feels so told and didactic and pleasant, with so little of it being her own internal dramatic moment of growth. Especially when it comes to both the first hour and to her incredible arc on the original show.

With Rei, she and Shinji say their goodbyes and dream of a life of happiness without EVAs (Rei’s little awkward fashioned baby doll is hilarious). It’s all done on a realistic film set (one which I bet housed Gainax) while the show’s original credits play behind them. They agree on a “neon genesis,” say goodbye and it all moves forward to that last scene on the train, where we see her talking only to Kaworu. Once again, there is a feeling of pleasantry and calm in this final goodbye, but also again, resolution is not catharsis. And the train scene feels particularly lacking because Shinji does not interact with either of them. But instead only interacts with Mari… which I know is part of leaving their story behind, but also brings us to my MOST lingering question of all…

Five - What the hell was Mari’s character really about?

So you may have noticed how little I’ve spoken about Mari so far. That’s because I have absolutely no idea what was going on with her. Yes, she wears glasses and a pink suit and also piloted some EVAs. Yes, she made jokes and teased people and flirted with everyone. Yes, she actually liked piloting and always seemed mixed up in their shit. But let’s do that old Phantom Menace test where we describe characters without using these surface signifiers… yeah… Even to this very moment, I have no understanding of who she really is. Because I grasp almost nothing meaningful about her past or even her psychology. At times the show seemed like it was suddenly going to turn into something with her, whether it’s a reason to steal the EVA (never given), the point of the Paris battle (which had very little bearing on anything), or why her last name gets revealed as Iscoriot (which is Judas’s last name, but doesn’t play into reveal of betrayal), or what the point was of her knowing Shinji’s parents once upon a time? I mean, am I missing something here? Does she have any kind of arc or shift or anything that makes for deeper characterization? Most damning of all, we don’t even know what she wants.

She’s just a cypher. A list of affectations that burst into moments. As bluntly as Shinji puts it, she’s “a gorgeous gal with big boobs.” I was honestly so dumbstruck by the character’s role the rebuilds that I went to the wiki to see if there was any information that I was just plain old missed. But there I inadvertently found the exact kinds of production explanations that I hate looking up - even if they undeniably confirm everything I was feeling: "Mari's character has a tumultuous development history, with Chief Director Anno knowing little more of his intent for her than that he wanted her to "destroy Eva". Unlike the others, her character was not Anno's idea, but rather the result of an explicit request by the producer, Otsuki, for a new main female character. Anno accepted it as a way of differentiating the Rebuilds from the anime series, but believes it was for commercial reasons.[29][30] Anno initially intended to make Mari a rather isolated character, devoid of relationships, but could not refrain from making her to much like the series' original characters, so decided to hand her development to others.” It goes on from there with more telling details, but it’s just OOF. You feel the complete insecurity and indecision at every step. They never knew who this character was or why they were using her. Which invites two obvious questions…

“Why are we suppose to care about Shinji ending up with her?”

To which I don’t have a good answer. Like so much of what I’ve said about the remixing instincts of these rebuilds, the story didn’t feel set-up for this particular choice at all. So the obviously second question is:

“Why did they make this choice at all?”

The answer is because she’s new. And, however blinded by the experience of nearly twenty years of working within the world of Evangelion, “new” is seemingly all that Anno wants for the future. I mean, it’s an ending which literally imagines them running out of the office (which I think might be the Gainax office?) and into the non-animated world like two delirious teens and never looking back. This is the real instinct of “destroying EVA” and it’s his happiest possible ending for him. Which means, like all the answers to all five of these questions, the best meaning is in the meta.

Worse, the ONLY way it works is in the meta.

To me, this is the utter death knell of the Rebuilds as independent pieces of art. I’ve made it plain in terms of how I think that negatively affects the drama itself. And given that these films were ostensibly meant to “get it right this time” and / or create the kinds of catharsis that seemingly proved so elusive (even though grand catharsis was exactly what the originals offered), it fails on that count so completely to me... But sometimes you have to be willing engage the meta anyway. I mean, End of Evangelion is full of all sorts of meta text, too. Not just because it literally shows a live shot of the fandom, but because it works as a perfect pairing with the final two episodes of the show. Together they operate as a demonstration of internal and external selfhood of Shinji, and part of larger catharsis when seen together. Perhaps it is that same notion that allows us to find true meaning in the meta of the rebuilds. After all, its fandom has a whole context and history of the show.

And it may be the only way to find solace with the process.

FINALE: SAILING TO BYZANTIUM VS. BYZANTIUM

I can’t imagine waiting 8 years for the last rebuild movie. Just as I can’t imagine going a decade between End of Evangelion and the first rebuild. And I especially can’t imagine going the distance with all of this. Some of you have spent nearly twenty five years with this property. And here I am, some poophead, coming and talking about what I think is what. Meanwhile you’ve likely had entire arcs with Evangelion. And you have feelings that have likely changed time and time and time again. As if the property itself was a reflection against your own growth.

There is no one this is likely more true for than Hideaki Anno.

Given everything I’ve seen, I can imagine the way so much of it has weighed on him. Whether it is the intense violence of the first series, the confrontational endings, or the various urges he felt in wanting to remake, remix, and rebuild the series from scratch. But the ability to talk about a thing artistically and then talk about it again later on isn’t a foreign concept in art. It actually ties into a famous series of poems by William Butler Yeats. Ugh, poetry? Yeah, but I like poetry and they’re reasonably famous poems. lIke, I mean, if they’re good enough to inspire the Coens to use the phrase “no country for old men” then they should be good enough for us? In the very least they provide a really nice lens of how to think about these two Evangelion narratives because there’s a lot of meaningful overlap. I also think it’s fun just to put up the entire poem here. Don’t worry they’re short. But if this sort of thing still makes your eyes glaze over you can just skim through because I’m gonna talk about them in more detail. Anyway, here goes:

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

By William Butler Yeats

I

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

* * *

Everything about this poem evokes so much of Neon Genesis Evangelion to me. The notion that there are no older soldiers in life, that they are literally stuck and “unageing,” objects of neglect and brutal summer cycles, thrown like dying animals against the sea. All while the old man like Gendo is busy building “monuments of its own magnificence.” And then there’s Byzantium itself. The city of death, the city of afterlife, the city of immortality, it is the thing we sail toward with hopeful yet fearful eyes - all in search of the sweet release of death from all our harrowing emotions… This absolutely feels like the work of the adult coming to grips with the struggles with mortality, with loss, with trauma, and the innate fixation on the end that feels like it's all around them. It's everything Yeats (and by extension, Anno) must have been feeling while in the act of creation. But then Yeats did an interesting thing…Years later he wrote another poem about death, this time when he was much, much closer to the end of his life.

A time when he was not sailing to that destination, but there…

* * *

BYZANTIUM

By William Butler Yeats

The unpurged images of day recede;

The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;

Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song

After great cathedral gong;

A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains

All that man is,

All mere complexities,

The fury and the mire of human veins.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,

Shade more than man, more image than a shade;

For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth

May unwind the winding path;

A mouth that has no moisture and no breath

Breathless mouths may summon;

I hail the superhuman;

I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,

More miracle than bird or handiwork,

Planted on the starlit golden bough,

Can like the cocks of Hades crow,

Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud

In glory of changeless metal

Common bird or petal

And all complexities of mire or blood.

At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit

Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,

Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,

Where blood-begotten spirits come

And all complexities of fury leave,

Dying into a dance,

An agony of trance,

An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.

Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,

Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood,

The golden smithies of the Emperor!

Marbles of the dancing floor

Break bitter furies of complexity,

Those images that yet

Fresh images beget,

That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

* * *

There’s an incredible sense of change in the tone to this, no? The fury is all gone, it instead understands how much death is a meek whimper, not an explosion of fire and blood. It is that which is restrained and bound, stuck seeing faces of the past shimmering against our memories, all but a faint glimmer of what once raged. And behind every decision of the rebuilds, whether for good or bad or simply different, I see this same muted emotion behind it, especially towards death and unmaking. I see this quietness, this growth, this acceptance. It is not active horror in the moment of the end, but more that sense of regret of looking back at a blood stained ocean, that “gong-tormented sea” as the poem puts it… And a desire to want to fix it. Which might be the way that age really affects all of us.

Unfortunately, this is all part of the reason the rebuilds don’t entirely work.

It is one thing to strike forward and create something that holds those meanings anew. It is another to go back and try and take the best expression of “Sailing to Byzantium” I’ve ever seen and effectively try to neuter it. Honestly, it undermines the original’s very purpose and sense of communication. But it also characterizes why every decision of the Rebuilds still has a human heart behind it. At times, Anno feels like Kaworu, a person from the future, telling a person of the past to rest assured. But since Anno is also Shinji, you see the way that he is effectively talking to himself. Always wishing for “happiness without an Eva.” Which is part of why you see the way he’s always delaying the biggest bummers of the story, or trying to switch them out, as if regretting how much the original series really bore its teeth. He does not want to hurt us in that same way, seemingly. Much because he does not want to hurt himself. But I can’t help, but feel like this misunderstands why the original series connected with us in turn…

The incredible power of Evangelion’s story is that it taught me the world can end and that’s okay. And it can end in horrible, haunting fashion, but one full of all sorts of complexities that need to be embraced instead of feared. It was not neat, it was not placating, and it was not full of resolution. But as is often the case with the calamities of life, these are the very things we need to be reassured of. The catharsis comes in the lack of resolution in that way. I didn’t connect to it because it made me feel better. I connected to it because it reflected the horrible, complex, and human ways I was feeling. Which means that Evangelion made me feel less alone. And from what you’ve all said, I know it made many of you feel the same. And in doing that, the impact of the show is invaluable. A testament to a time in our lives that so few mainstream art is not courageous enough to depict.

By coming back to it all with the rebuilds, we are meant to bring a mature eye to that same time. And yes, we get something out of it, no doubt. But it’s often not the kind of thing that helps deepen that meaningful connection - or even really seems to understand why that show connected as it did. Often it’s just hitting the nostalgia button, or playing a b-side, or clarifying a logical point that was already emotionally clear, or just remixing a bit of surprise. But it’s not the same as the dramatization of what came before. But hey, in the end, it’s hard to repaint The Mona Lisa. And there probably isn’t a way to really do it if you tried. But try they did. And while the original run of Neon Genesis Evangelion stays as one of my favorite things, like a nostalgic laugh, I can’t help but somehow feel a little less connected to the thing I cherish so much. Just ever so little. But likewise, I understand the way the artist felt like they had to get rid of the albatross. For it was something Anno was still clearly wrestling with so deeply. Which is why all the finality of the goodbyes and the unmaking of catharsis in the name of total resolution was meant to remove every single conflict or storyline associated with it. It was designed to make both us - and him - finally let it go. So no matter how inward his artistic leanings were with it…

I begrudge no one their journey toward release.

But I just can’t help but have a regret of my own. Because the one non-Evangelion thing that Anno directed this decade was Shin Godzilla, a property that clearly overlaps with this genre, but is still a film that’s so outrageously good I can hardly stand it. It’s not just an incredible Godzilla or Kaiju film, it might be one of the best dramatic expressions of bureaucracy I’ve ever seen. Something that confirms that Anno just genuinely might be one of the best filmmakers around… And he’s spent the last decade gazing inward and backwards with Evangelion, sometimes to a point, but often to not. And while I genuinely hope he got what he wanted out of this process…

I can’t help but wonder what else we would have got instead.

<3HULK